I am building ravinhill and I am wondering what the best way is to paint the ice river.

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In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.

I have been giving that some thought. The best ice river I ever saw was done by painting clear resin like flowing broken Ice then covering it with clear resin. The blocks of broken Ice were embedded in more clear resin. There were lots of layers.It made an incredible diorama. For a game table I am thinking about using Plaid crackle medium over the North Sea Blue from Plaid Delta cream coat. Then dry brushing it white. Adding Woodland Scenic Snow flock to the edges. I am going to try a frozen pond first.

small sale example
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHWo8RG1NuY

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"the same as a duck you must be made of wood"

Thanks, that helps a lot

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In a hole in the ground, there lived a hobbit.

I watched some how to videos on using PVA and school glue.





The school glue was an epic fail. The full strength PVA might work better
The Plaid crackle medium has to be dry so it is taking longer. I dry brushed the sky blue with white. I will let the other tile dry 4 hours before drybrushing. I used true blue as a base. Sky blue was used as a top coat.



It might work better to skip the sky blue and put the white over the true blue.

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"the same as a duck you must be made of wood"

There are two things you can try. One is shower door plastic that comes with
crackle in the plastic as your river base. Then I would use Modge Podge or whatever resin you prefer on top of that to create flows or cracks.
If you can find ice blue replacement plastic you're in business.


If you can't find shower door plastic, then a clear acryllic panel is the next best thing. Again using resin or whatever you chose, on top of that

The shower door plastic and light fixture plastic is available at the hardware store.



used for the beach
The texture would work for ice too!

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"the same as a duck you must be made of wood"

Yes, all of the big box stores carry it. They also sell a tool to cut it. It's only a few bucks and well worth it.

Nice job, Willow.

Abridged from "The New Scenery Tips and Techniques", 2002 Kalambach Publishing:

"Mix 2 oz EnviroTex with 3 toothpick dots acrylic phthalo blue" [which is pretty close to Ultramarines Blue IMO]. The next few products mentioned are not available anymore, so I would try using that GW snow flocking you bought. "Stir until all the particles are suspended in the resin. Haphazardly paint the ice thinly onto waxes paper sheets. The resin will bead up and reform into hundreds of pools. Let this cure for 20 min, then lightly press a clean new sheet of wax paper over the ice and peel the sheets apart. You will have 2 sheets of ice, each thinned down to scale thickness [HO scale for model trains]. Place them on a flat surface and puff Shimmering Ice Flakes [no longer available, use substitute] over them. As the ice reforms, it locks onto stray flakes to produce thin, irregular edges."

The author recommends gluing with our stable CA (runny super glue) to create the appearance of various thicknesses.

For snow, he suggests good old plaster, made into a soupy batch. Pour over area and blow into shape with a hair dryer.

EnviroTex is a resin used to cover countertops and is available in 1 ft. sq. sample batches from craft and hardware stores. Alternatively, Woodland Scenics makes mixable resin for modeling water in a sample pack "River/Waterfall Learning Kit". What is nice about the water effects product is that it is thick. The runny stuff will need to be dammed up, or it will just run all over (like a real river!). Their school projects line can be found at chain craft shops and has a winter pack. I bought the rocks one and had quite a lot of fun with it. They are a perfect sample size for most terrain pieces.

The entire article and pictures can be found here: https://books.google.ca/books?id=wZpt6ldjXasC&pg=PA25&lpg=PA25&dq=sparkling+tints+railroad&source=bl&ots=Zlwu46f4MD&sig=4sRinirEaHnrH1CnwVE0rawhmd4&hl=en&sa=X&ei=uEf6VKixDILVoAT124FA&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=sparkling%20tints%20railroad&f=false

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"Diplomacy is the art of saying 'nice doggie' until you can find a rock." -Will Rogers